


Mortal Bodies

by beantiger



Category: Hololive, HololiveEN, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: (mentioned as a joke), Aphrodisiacs, Asexual Character, Asexuality Spectrum, Attempt at Humor, Calli doesn't know how Google works, Calli no, F/F, Light Angst, Mythology References, Rating May Change, Sex Toys, Silly, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tsunderes, asexual!Calli, but understands video games perfectly somehow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29995635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/beantiger
Summary: She felt bad about the delay. She hated that she felt bad about it, because, honestly? To hell with feeling anything at all. Yet here she was, living with the distinct sense that she’d been unfair to the Bird and continued to be unfair to her every day.(Calliope is an asexual being and no one taught her what that means or how to use The Google™ for it. Hilarious, angsty, possibly bottom-left misunderstandings ensue.)
Relationships: Mori Calliope/Takanashi Kiara
Comments: 24
Kudos: 114





	1. If It Never Happened...

**Author's Note:**

> Another in the ["Like Kusotori Herself"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690577/chapters/73009296) soulmates AU thingie. I really ought to collect them in a series...
> 
>  **MY TWITTER:** [@kfpskrellington](https://twitter.com/kfpskrellington) (mostly HololiveEN/Takamori)

Guilt was a new feeling for Calliope Mori, beloved apprentice of Death. A very mortal feeling, that one. It had pervaded her mind for the last few weeks, and she’d been taking it out—in her free time—on mobs from various FromSoftware games.

Delicious, impartial violence. She’d barely left her living room. She’d barely left her _couch._ It was unlike her, and everyone had noticed, but hiding out like a bearded hermit suited her better right now than—

“Oh my God, Calli,” the Bird said, holding back a shriek of laughter as she flopped over on Calliope's lap. “Look at this.”

Calliope grimaced, and, with much effort, looked away from _Dark Souls._ “Am I going to regret inviting you over?” 

(She never regretted it, actually. Even before she knew they had a shared destiny.)

Kiara splayed out along the sofa, her belly squarely against Calliope’s thighs. “Actually, I invited myself—”

“Not better.”

“—and anyway, it stops being an invitation when you’re married.”

“Not married,” Calliope growled.

But they _were_ together. In a sense. More than Homies, less than...wives. They were Whatevers, and Calliope had made Kiara wait the better part of eternity to become Whatevers. It had taken the reaper about that long to admit the inevitability of it, and of the feather-shaped mark on her palm.

She felt bad about the delay. She hated that she felt bad about it, because, honestly? To hell with feeling anything at all. Yet here she was, living with the distinct sense that she’d been unfair to the Bird and continued to be unfair to her every day. 

Kiara flipped and waved her phone in Calliope’s face. On the screen flashed a picture of a plastic—cylinder? Or something. Colored purple, flat on one end, nubby on the other. It looked about as long as Calliope’s arm.

“Can you imagine putting that _whole fucking thing_ inside you?” Kiara asked.

“Inside y— _oh._ Oh, of course.” 

Kiara giggled deviously. “You’re blushing!”

“Nope. Just mad that you interrupted game time, my dude.” Calliope wiggled her legs and tapped her controller against the Bird’s stomach. “Get off of me.”

She laughed a little at the ridiculousness of the Bird’s weird pervy ding-dong apparatus...but also to cover the shame that bubbled up in her stomach. Any talk of intimacy ( _guh!_ ) reminded the reaper that she had forbade it. At least until she could center herself around the fact that she was in a Whatever kind-of relationship now. 

Kiara, for her part, had been patient and restrained. Respectful. You couldn’t fully wring the nastiness out of her—the _bottom left,_ as the Deadbeats called it, referring to some mee-mee of theirs. But the groping, grinding abuse that Calliope had half-expected was nowhere to be found. All of Kiara’s moments panting after her like a dog in heat had been for show, for their stream viewers. The Bird had decided to get serious, it seemed.

It was lovely to have someone so thoughtful in your (un)life.

It was awful to make them wait for you.

Kiara scrolled furiously on her phone. “We should get one for later.”

“Does it come with a hammer? A mallet?” Unnerved, Calliope returned her attention to harassing Hollows. “Because I feel like that’s what it’s going to take to get such an object...anywhere.”

“Oh, Calli. You’d be surprised…” Grinning, Kiara bent her knee up and poked it against the reaper’s cheek, rambling in German. Then she said: “I have so much to teach you.”

“Maybe next century, _kusotori._ ” 

“Of course. Whenever you’re ready!”

***

Obviously, Calliope was attracted to the Bird. Like, _obviously._ Anyone would be. Only legitimate idiots could possibly ignore Kiara’s radiance, her bright and easy way in just about any social situation, etcetera.

Oh, and her irritating, viral optimism.

Oh, and that smile. Stupid. But sincere. Pleasant. Energized. It had a way of lifting your spirits, or lack thereof. 

Oh, and...

Yeah.

Calliope’s eyes slid from her television screen to the pajama-clad little bird laying across her lap, trying to look surreptitious. Now that they were Whatevers, she’d found herself appreciating new things about Kiara. Like the little divot where her outer thighs met her hips.

Very good. 

In short: Kiara was, unfortunately, beautiful in about a thousand ways. Much of what had irritated her about _kusotori_ before had become charming, and the reaper realized, finally, why Kiara had such a following.

Kiara kicked her legs a little as she scrolled through Twitter. “Everyone’s drawing, like, lewd pictures of us again.”

“You know they do that after every collab. Especially after we announced...uh, us.”

“Hee. I’m not complaining. Like, like, like...” She tapped the screen repeatedly.

Anxiety ran its fingers up and down Calliope’s spine. She sat back, watching her _Dark Souls_ character get absolutely wasted on-screen.

Calliope did want to be intimate at some point. Kind-of. Sort-of. The need came from a place beyond her physical shell. It wasn’t the first thought she had when she spent time with _kusotori,_ either. If it never happened, not for the rest of eternity, she wouldn’t have minded.

Was that normal? That must have been normal, right? Love didn’t necessarily mean ridiculous friction and all that procreation stuff, yes?

Ah, shit. She was in love, wasn’t she.

***

Sex, attraction—these concepts, in practice, were as new to Calliope as living itself. How the actual f-word did mortal bodies work?

Like, alright: she’d met her fill of lusty, nasty love-gods in her tenure as a reaper. And she knew the chemistry and biology involved, theoretically. The Google™ had much to say on the topic, and she’d drank it all in: hormones and pheromones and slot A into tab B. Apparently, humans came in all sorts of body configurations, too, and endured something rather eldritch called _puberty._

All of that made sense, ish. In her mind, at least.

***

Three o’clock in the afternoon came and went. Kiara, tired of lying around, showered there at Calliope’s underworld apartment. Meanwhile, the reaper allowed herself to close her eyes and imagine _kusotori_ in the nude. Just for a second. It was only a body, right? A shell. And Calliope wanted to test her own body’s reaction to it.

She would think back to The Google™’s words: _Signs of arousal include…_

Nothing happened, though. 

That seemed bad.

***

This wasn’t something she could take to Death-sensei. Ugh. Its advice she would always appreciate, but something within her recoiled when she thought about bringing fornication up with the old bro.

That left—well, no. None of her shinigami friends would know, either. Nor did she trust her death-god ‘siblings’ to provide any sort of objective advice.

The Homies? Little Gura had just celebrated her ten thousandth birthday or something like that, but, for an Atlantean, such an age was exceedingly young. Ina was lovely, and (probably?) an adult by mortal terms, but—well, Calliope had a certain distaste about bringing the Old Ones into any of this. That left Watson, who, in her infinite wisdom, would likely call her a chode. Or tell her to look it up herself.

***

So, eventually, she went to The Google™ again, after Kiara had gone home.

 _Yo,_ she typed. _I, the inheritor of a pre-owned mortal body, would (please) like to know if it is possible to love someone, and to be attracted to them, but to not need to ‘know’ your girlfriend in the old-fashioned sense so to speak, well technically we’re not girlfriends, let me explain…_

It turned into an essay. A well-thought out essay. The Google™ would understand.

***

It did not understand.

_Your search returned no results._

The reaper, leaning back at her desk alone, poured herself a glass of Pinot Noir. She blanked out her mind. Lit hella candles. Spent some time answering emails. Went to Twitter. Doomscrolled, as the mortals would say. Did a vanity search. Pressed the little heart button next to a few new pieces of #Takamori fan-art. 

The Deadbeats had started depicting her with her soul-mark, and it looked pretty baller, to be honest.

She decided she wouldn’t fail _kusotori_ any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another longer bit. I think I'm done for the week with writing. I'm tired and want to go paint. LOL. We'll continue next week. Honestly, I wasn't going to post this tonight, but then Calli read my superchat on stream and it Energized Me. 
> 
> This one may get lewd-ish, depending on whether or not I take it in a certain direction, so just be aware of that, y'all. It'll still be pretty lighthearted overall, though. I think?
> 
> I want to do fics about the other girls eventually, and especially get some insight from Kiara about all this, but Calliope is just too hilarious to write. As I tell my wife, "If it's dumb, it goes in."


	2. The Ashes of Aphrodite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna update this weekly or so until it's done. I have the motivation to go faster, but need to focus on other things, like capitalism. What I would give to exist in a universe where I could just sit and write Hololive stories for a living, because I could go on for quite a while. lmao!

The wine had settled into her blood that evening. Deeply. Calliope could handle a lot of it, at least by mortal standards, but she had, uh, also consumed a lot of it. Her senses drifted away from her. There was a word on the tip of her tongue—something that would help her connect with _kusotori._ A substance that might awaken the body she had chosen to inhabit. Yes.

How much time did she have? How much longer would she make Kiara wait?

Calliope forced herself to look at the calendar hanging above the Powerful Computing Rectangle that she used to stream. A pink cat sticker marked May 10th. Next to the sticker, Kiara had written, in shiny orange gel pen, _♥♥♥ 4 mo!_

Today was May 8th.

The word she sought finally manifested itself in her inebriated reaper brain: _Aphrodisiac._ And she knew where to find one, in a sense. Inspiration had hit her like a fist to the f-wording spleen.

Sober Calliope might have said, _Don’t do it, fam,_ or some shit like, _She’ll love you anyway, fam,_ or, _Go back to being a formless reaper, fam, this caring stuff is all hard as dicks,_ but she was well beyond that now.

***

In her underworld apartment, she had a closet that was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It connected to her kitchen. Ostensibly it was meant as a demonic pantry of some sort—a place to keep tortured souls or whatever, all in cute little mason jars. But Calliope almost never used it, and called it the Terror Horror Hole, because she’d mostly forgotten what-all she’d put in there when she manifested in this reality.

Mostly.

She did know the Terror Horror Hole housed a few special items—gifts from across her unlife. Including an aphrodisiac, if she could only find it...

Over boxes Calliope drunkenly crawled, tripping over swords and bones and gently growling tomes. Kappa plates. At least two sets of weighing scales. Chessboards. Piles of golden coins tinged with dried blood and dust. 

Where was the _thing?_ The thing that would save her relationship with Kiara, which seemed very important all of the sudden. The thing that big bro Hades had given her. 

Calliope had siblings, in a sense—the same vague, symbolic sense that she had a parent in Death-sensei. Most gods of the underworld she might call _brother_ or _sister,_ because _genderless fellow metaphor_ didn’t really work. Anubis and Hel, Santa Muerte and Orcus...she didn’t trust most of them, and she wasn’t close to any of them, but she liked a few of them.

Some of them liked her, too. Especially Hades. He was a decent one. _Backinzeday,_ when she was just a baby reaper, he’d made her a replica sheriff’s badge from his own store of precious metal. And he’d given her much from his vault just a year ago when she decided to tread the land of the living as flesh and blood.

Not that she really needed the shields of ancient kings, crystal skulls, a first edition copy of _The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,_ etcetera. After she had taken on the body of a human, she had thrown all of it in the Terror Horror Hole with the rest of her mysterious mortal garbage. She intended to clear it all out and, like, sell it to her Deadbeats at some point.

But _this_...ah!

A vial no larger than her finger hung from a string attached to a coat hook. The dust within twinkled in mother-of-pearl colors, alternating beautifully like the LEDs on her microphone: silver, pink, gold. As Calliope drew near, the dust seemed to emit a sharp, though pleasurable, heat. Like standing in the sun on the shoreline in the overworld. She could almost hear the seagulls, the crashing of surf...

Illegible scribbles marked the vial’s water-damaged tag. Ancient Greek, probably. Calliope squinted her eyes, and the words suddenly twisted themselves around:

_THE ASHES OF APHRODITE_

Sick.

She grabbed it and began her army crawl back out of the Terror Horror Hole.

_I got you,_ kusotori, Calliope thought. _We’re gonna make this work._

***

Then the damn vial started talking.

 _A NEW HAND HAS TOUCHED THE BEACON,_ echoed a rather paternal-sounding voice in the reaper’s mind. Then: _JUST KIDDING. I HAVE BEEN PLAYING THE SKYRIM LATELY AND I SAW THAT YOU WERE TOO. I FIGURED YOU WOULD APPRECIATE THE JAPE, OH HO. GOOD JOB ON ONE MILLION SUBMARINES, BY THE WAY. I STREAM, TOO, ON THE TWITCH. MY USERNAME IS ‘HADESNUTS.’_

“Uh,” Calliope slurred. She emerged into the light of her kitchen, a headache brewing in the back of her skull. None of Death-sensei’s avatars could fully manifest for too long in each others’ presences, lest the multiverse itself fall apart...and so most chose to communicate in other ways. Dumbass ways. “Thanks. Hades, my dude, my man, fam, you know I don’t like that whole mind-speak thing, yeah?”

_I THOUGHT I WOULD GREET YOU, MORI!_ Hades said. _HOWDY, AND SUCH. IT’S BEEN, WHAT? ONE THOUSAND YEARS? ALSO, THERE IS A LOT OF WINE IN HERE. YOU ARE VERY DRUNK._

__Indeed. In fact—as she grabbed her blender from her cabinet—Calliope decided she was too drunk for this. She mumbled only, “I go by Calliope now.”_ _

_HMM. FASCINATING CHOICE! ANYWAY, ARE YOU IN DANGER? ARE THE ASHES IN DANGER? DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE? I SENSED THAT THEY WERE MOVED._

__“Nope. Just being a good girlfriend or whatever. Serving my bird, ha, ha ha ha.”_ _

__She slapped her marked hand on the counter. A silence fell upon her mind like snow. The reaper thought, momentarily, _happily,_ that Hades had (as her Deadbeats might say) GTFO’d. _ _

__Instead, he sighed into Calliope’s brain. She could almost feel his breath tickling her every thought. Ugh._ _

_AH. I SEE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND...NOT DOING THAT,_ Hades replied. _I GAVE THE ASHES TO YOU SO YOU WOULD PROTECT THEM, MORI, IN THE NAME OF APHRODITE. YOU WERE ALWAYS THE CALMEST OF US. THE MOST TRUSTWORTHY. YOU HAD NO INTEREST IN MORTAL PLEASURES._

“Hey, you know what, Hades—” Calliope dumped the vial’s contents into her blender, alongside a few over-ripe pomegranates. “We’ll catch up later.” 

_IF YOU ARE HAVING RELATIONSHIP TROUBLES—_

__“Gonna cut you off riiiiiiight there. Peace.”_ _

__She closed the blender and turned it on. Then—in a move that seemed badass at the time to her inebriated self—she threw the empty vial against the kitchen wall. It practically _exploded._ How violent._ _

__Kiara was going to be so proud of her._ _

____

***

Deep in a cavernous realm of the underworld known as Asphodel, the retired death-god Hades sensed something askew. It was as if his own bones were talking to him, if he had bones in any true sense. His core, his _being,_ urged him to take action.

Hades took off his headset, looked away from his maxed-out wood elf, then listened to his intuition.

The Mori was going to do something very stupid in the name of love.

He had to stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trifold notes!
> 
> 1.) There's a LOT of Calli!lore in this chapter that we won't really touch upon in this story, with the exception of her relationship to Hades. We'll explore the lore more deeply in other tales, though. After this fic is done I have a few ideas that aren't precisely hashtag Takamori, but deal with Calli's long unlife. Hopefully y'all will still be interested!
> 
> 2.) As a reminder, this plot is going in a silly/heartwarming direction (again, with possible lewdness/sex), not a noncon/dubcon direction. Don't want anyone to feel like they may stumble across triggering content out of nowhere.
> 
> 3.) Fun fact: original draft of this chapter had Watson in it, briefly, as Calliope asked her to be reminded of the word 'aphrodisiac.' Watson told her to Google it, but Calliope told her that she no longer trusted Google. Then Watson tried to sell her drugs. It was a good time, and, honestly, I still kind-of consider it canon.


End file.
